Top Science News

January 29, 2026

Top Headlines

Study Raises Red Flags over Long-term Effectiveness of Popular Weight Loss Drugs Like Ozempic

Jan. 29, 2026 Ozempic, Mounjaro, and Zepbound can drive impressive weight loss, but stopping them is often followed by rapid weight regain. Researchers found that people regain weight faster after quitting these ...

Tiny Mammals Are Sending Warning Signs Scientists Can Finally Read

Jan. 29, 2026 Small mammals are early warning systems for environmental damage, but many species look almost identical, making them hard to track. Scientists have developed a new footprint-based method that can tell apart nearly indistinguishable species with ...

Helping with Grandkids May Slow Cognitive Decline

Jan. 29, 2026 Helping care for grandchildren may offer an unexpected boost to brain health later in life. Researchers found that grandparents who provided childcare scored higher on memory and verbal skills than those who did not. The effect did not depend on how ...

Long-term Alcohol Use Linked to a Sharp Rise in Rectal Cancer

Jan. 29, 2026 Drinking heavily over many years is linked to a higher risk of colorectal cancer, especially rectal cancer, according to new research tracking U.S. adults for two decades. People who drank heavily throughout adulthood faced sharply higher risks than ...

A Breakthrough That Turns Exhaust CO2 Into Useful Materials

Jan. 29, 2026 Scientists have created a device that captures carbon dioxide and transforms it into a useful chemical in a single step. The new electrode works with realistic exhaust gases rather than requiring purified CO2. It converts the captured gas into ...

Low-Earth Orbit Is Just 2.8 Days from Disaster

Jan. 28, 2026 Low-Earth orbit is more crowded—and fragile—than it looks. Satellites constantly weave past each other, burning fuel and making dozens of evasive maneuvers every year just to stay safe. A major solar storm could disable navigation and ...

Dark Stars Could Solve Three Major Mysteries of the Early Universe

Jan. 28, 2026 JWST has revealed a strange early universe filled with ultra-bright “blue monster” galaxies, mysterious “little red dots,” and black holes that seem far too massive for their age. A new study proposes that dark stars—hypothetical stars ...

Scientists Turn Tumor Immune Cells Into Cancer Killers

Jan. 28, 2026 Scientists at KAIST have found a way to turn a tumor’s own immune cells into powerful cancer fighters—right inside the body. Tumors are packed with macrophages, immune cells that should attack cancer but are usually silenced by the tumor ...

These Nanoparticles Could Destroy Disease Proteins Behind Dementia and Cancer

Jan. 28, 2026 Researchers have developed smart nanoparticles that can seek out and destroy disease-causing proteins the body can’t normally eliminate. Unlike traditional drugs, these particles can reach ...

The Hidden Reason Cancer Immunotherapy Often Fails

Jan. 28, 2026 Cancer immunotherapy has been a game-changer, but many tumors still find ways to slip past the immune system. New research reveals a hidden trick: cancer cells can package the immune-blocking protein PD-L1 into tiny particles that circulate through ...

Why Long COVID Brain Fog Seems so Much Worse in the U.S.

Jan. 28, 2026 A massive international study of more than 3,100 long COVID patients uncovered a striking divide in how brain-related symptoms are reported around the world. In the U.S., the vast majority of non-hospitalized patients described brain fog, ...

The Fat You Can’t See Could Be Shrinking Your Brain

Jan. 28, 2026 Where your body stores fat may matter just as much as how much you carry—especially for your brain. Using advanced MRI scans and data from nearly 26,000 people, researchers identified two surprising fat patterns tied to faster brain aging, ...

Latest Headlines

updated 5:13am EST

A Sudden Signal Flare Reveals the Hidden Partner Behind Fast Radio Bursts

Jan. 28, 2026 A repeating fast radio burst has just given up one of its biggest secrets. Long-term observations revealed a rare signal flare caused by plasma likely ejected from a nearby companion star. This shows ...

Radio Waves Revealed What Happened Before a Star Exploded

Jan. 28, 2026 For the first time, astronomers have captured radio signals from a rare exploding star, exposing what happened in the years leading up to its death. The radio waves reveal that the star violently ...

This Spider’s “pearl Necklace” Was Living Parasites

Jan. 28, 2026 What looked like a pearl necklace on a tiny spider turned out to be parasitic mite larvae. Scientists identified the mites as a new species, marking the first record of its family in Brazil. The ...

A Common Parasite in the Brain Is Far More Active Than We Thought

Jan. 27, 2026 A common parasite long thought to lie dormant is actually much more active and complex. Researchers found that Toxoplasma gondii cysts contain multiple parasite subtypes, not just one sleeping form. ...

This Discovery Could Let Bones Benefit from Exercise Without Moving

Jan. 27, 2026 Researchers have discovered a biological switch that explains why movement keeps bones strong. The protein senses physical activity and pushes bone marrow stem cells to build bone instead of storing ...

Strange White Rocks on Mars Hint at Millions of Years of Rain

Jan. 27, 2026 Bright white rocks spotted by NASA’s Perseverance rover are rewriting what we thought we knew about ancient Mars. These aluminum-rich clays, called kaolinite, usually form on Earth only after ...

Scientists Finally Explain Earth’s Strangest Fossils

Jan. 27, 2026 The Ediacara Biota are some of the strangest fossils ever found—soft-bodied organisms preserved in remarkable detail where preservation shouldn’t be possible. Scientists now think their survival ...

A Century-Old Stonehenge Mystery May Finally Be Solved

Jan. 27, 2026 Scientists have found compelling new evidence that humans, not glaciers, brought Stonehenge’s bluestones to the site. Using advanced mineral analysis, researchers searched nearby river sediments ...

A Hidden Magnetic Order Could Unlock Superconductivity

Jan. 26, 2026 Physicists have discovered that hidden magnetic order plays a key role in the pseudogap, a puzzling state of matter that appears just before certain materials become superconductors. Using an ...

Obesity and High Blood Pressure May Directly Cause Dementia

Jan. 26, 2026 A new genetic study suggests that obesity and high blood pressure may play a direct role in causing dementia, not just increasing the risk. By analyzing data from large populations in Denmark and the ...

Distant Entangled Atoms Acting as One Sensor Deliver Stunning Precision

Jan. 26, 2026 Researchers have demonstrated that quantum entanglement can link atoms across space to improve measurement accuracy. By splitting an entangled group of atoms into separate clouds, they were able to ...

A Lost Disease Emerges from 5,500-Year-Old Human Remains

Jan. 26, 2026 A 5,500-year-old skeleton from Colombia has revealed the oldest known genome of the bacterium linked to syphilis and related diseases. The ancient strain doesn’t fit neatly into modern categories, ...

Scientists Just Cracked the Hidden Rules of Cancer Evolution

Jan. 26, 2026 Cancer doesn’t evolve by pure chaos. Scientists have developed a powerful new method that reveals the hidden rules guiding how cancer cells gain and lose whole chromosomes—massive genetic shifts ...

Scientists Exposed How Cancer Hides in Plain Sight

Jan. 24, 2026 Pancreatic cancer may evade the immune system using a clever molecular trick. Researchers found that the cancer-driving protein MYC also suppresses immune alarm signals, allowing tumors to grow ...

Earthquake Sensors Can Hear Space Junk Falling to Earth

Jan. 24, 2026 Falling space junk is becoming a real-world hazard, and scientists have found a clever new way to track it using instruments already listening to the Earth itself. By tapping into networks of ...

New Catalyst Makes Plastic Upcycling 10x More Efficient Than Platinum

Jan. 24, 2026 Scientists are finding new ways to replace expensive, scarce platinum catalysts with something far more abundant: tungsten carbide. By carefully controlling how tungsten carbide’s atoms are ...

Ancient Giant Kangaroos Could Hop After All

Jan. 23, 2026 Giant kangaroos that lived during the Ice Age may not have been as slow and grounded as once believed. A new study finds their leg bones and tendons were likely strong enough to support hopping, ...

The Early Universe Supercharged Black Hole Growth

Jan. 26, 2026 Astronomers may have finally cracked one of the universe’s biggest mysteries: how black holes grew so enormous so fast after the Big Bang. New simulations show that early, chaotic galaxies created ...

Ancient People Carried a Wild Potato Across the American Southwest

Jan. 25, 2026 Long before farming took hold, ancient Indigenous peoples of the American Southwest were already shaping the future of a wild potato. New evidence shows that this small, hardy plant was deliberately ...

Scientists Twist Tiny Crystals to Control Electricity

Jan. 25, 2026 Researchers have developed a technique that allows them to carve complex three dimensional nanodevices directly from single crystals. To demonstrate its power, they sculpted microscopic helices from ...

The Hidden Health Impact of Growing Up With ADHD Traits

Jan. 24, 2026 A large, decades-long study suggests that signs of ADHD in childhood may have consequences that extend well beyond school and behavior. Researchers followed nearly 11,000 people from childhood into ...

Astronomers Found a Black Hole Growing Way Too Fast

Jan. 24, 2026 Astronomers have spotted a rare, rule-breaking quasar in the early Universe that appears to be growing its central black hole at an astonishing pace. Observations show the black hole is devouring ...

“Stars Like the Sun Don’t Just Stop Shining,” but This One Did

Jan. 24, 2026 A distant Sun-like star suddenly went dark for months, stunning astronomers who quickly realized something massive was passing in front of it. Observations revealed a gigantic disk of gas and dust ...

This 2.6-Million-Year-Old Jawbone Changes the Human Story

Jan. 23, 2026 A rare fossil discovery in Ethiopia has pushed the known range of Paranthropus hundreds of miles farther north than ever before. The 2.6-million-year-old jaw suggests this ancient relative of humans ...

Scientists Just Overturned a 100-Year-Old Rule of Chemistry, and the Results Are “impossible”

Jan. 23, 2026 Chemists at UCLA are showing that some of organic chemistry’s most famous “rules” aren’t as unbreakable as once thought. By creating bizarre, cage-shaped molecules with warped double ...

Spacecraft Captures the "magnetic Avalanche" That Triggers Giant Solar Explosions

Jan. 21, 2026 Solar Orbiter has captured the clearest evidence yet that a solar flare grows through a cascading “magnetic avalanche.” Small, weak magnetic disturbances rapidly multiplied, triggering stronger ...

A Dying Star’s Final Breath Glows in a New Webb Image of the Helix Nebula

Jan. 26, 2026 Webb’s latest image of the Helix Nebula reveals a dramatic close-up of a dying star shedding its outer layers. The detailed view highlights glowing knots of gas shaped by fast-moving stellar winds ...

NASA Is Set to Send Astronauts Around the Moon Again

Jan. 25, 2026 NASA is moving into a new phase of space exploration, with major progress across human spaceflight, science missions, and advanced technology. In just one year, the agency has launched multiple ...

Brain Waves Could Help Paralyzed Patients Move Again

Jan. 24, 2026 People with spinal cord injuries often lose movement even though their brains still send the right signals. Researchers tested whether EEG brain scans could capture those signals and reroute them to ...

Europa’s Ice May Be Feeding a Hidden Ocean That Could Support Life

Jan. 23, 2026 Europa’s subsurface ocean might be getting fed after all. Scientists found that salty, nutrient-rich surface ice can become heavy enough to break free and sink through Europa’s icy shell, ...